Innovation Management - Creating value with innovation management.

People who lead their organization’s practice of collaborative innovation find themselves on the receiving end of ideas that exist outside of their original context or charter. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins advocates that leaders embrace these orphans as a catalyst for deep, creative ideation. He lays out a way to do so by way of hosting Ideation Scene Investigation 2012.

Organizations fund internal communications groups to develop and disseminate the central narrative for the group. Changes wrought by the Digital Age have usurped this group’s role as the exclusive interpreter and messenger for intra-firm information, however. In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins advocates that internal communications reframe and refresh its charter by embracing the practice of collaborative innovation in order to facilitate engagement amongst staff.

“Innovate or die” becomes the order of the day. People in response seek ways to innovate. Of late, many have embraced the practice of collaborative innovation, with its application of social media to sourcing crowds and ideas, and design thinking, with its structured approach to vetting hypotheses about new business opportunities. Having arrived in the organization by different routes, they exist as potential complements. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins explores ways to combine the practices to their mutual benefit.

People who practice collaborative innovation at times seek out of the box ideas for a given challenge. In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins applies work from Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman by way of offering insights on selecting crowds that can achieve novelty.

Change benefits some more than others. The practice of collaborative innovation, which by design offers transformative change, is no different. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins advises campaign teams on engaging people who find themselves on the losing end of the practice. Ignoring their concerns jeopardizes the initiative.

People who practice collaborative innovation learn how to craft a series of engagements where participants can see the whole—the whole problem and the whole set of potential solutions—in order to reach a shared understanding of the way forward. In articulating the way forward, idea by idea, the group commits to a larger strategic intent. In this article, I describe a way in which practitioners can craft an engagement in which participants can reach a shared understanding of which ideas to pursue from the front to the back end of innovation.

Robert Kaplan and David Norton popularized the Balanced Scorecard twenty years ago. Its simple, visual framework helps organizations depict linked sets of goals that define strategy. Today, with new mindsets, practices, and technologies, people have more opportunities to engage in helping their organizations envision the future. The scorecard, however, can at times seem like an Easter Island statue, offering mute, impenetrable witness to firm performance. In this article Doug Collins explores opportunities for people to bring alive the scorecard by applying the practice of collaborative innovation.

Members of a community engaged in the practice of collaborative innovation gain tremendous insights as they pursue that practice through the phases of an enquiry-led campaign. What ideas and insights do we contribute to the question at hand? What have we learned about the practice itself? One commitment that campaign teams make to the community is to create forums and provide the resources to share these insights. In this article Doug Collins suggests an approach by which the campaign team can build a basic communications plan to meet their commitment for sharing relevant information at each phase.

The practice of collaborative innovation opens the door to meaningfully transforming the ways in which people engage with one another as they pursue the critical questions facing the organization. Understanding the extent to which people continue to use incumbent means of collaboration can help you to understand the extent to which they have embraced the practice. In this article Doug Collins suggests having a look at our old friend, e-mail.

Organizations create centers of excellence to distill and disseminate best practices on any number of topics. Using this approach to support collaborative innovation has certain drawbacks, however. In this article Doug Collins identifies the drawbacks and explores an alternative way to support collaborative innovation which respects the tenets of the practice by adopting principles from the Montessori Method.

Communicating the intent behind collaborative innovation is an integral part of the practice. What are we as members of the collaborative innovation community here to create together—and why? In this article Doug Collins approaches this topic in an imaginative way by drafting a speech that a CEO delivers to their organization, announcing the launch of their collaborative innovation program, the Idea Juggernaut.

Today, many seek ways to transform the manner in which their organization convenes to solve problems and to reach a shared understanding of strategic intent. The practice of collaborative innovation offers a path forward. In this article innovation architect Doug Collins suggests a place for people to start their journey focusing on how to work with the enquiry led, internally focused form.

Campaign teams cover a lot of ground as they work with the sponsor of a collaborative innovation challenge. In this article, innovation architect Doug Collins makes the case that campaign teams should focus their energies on helping the sponsor develop the critical question that serves as the basis for convening the community. Forming the powerful question—the question that accurately reflects the sponsor’s intent and that resonates with the community—yields the greatest return on time spent in developing the campaign, relative to its ultimate success.

Practitioners in each new field emerge to explore its early, exciting promise, reconciling that potential with the results they achieve in reality. The rapidly emerging and rapidly evolving field of collaborative innovation is no different in this regard. In this article Doug Collins shares his perspective on the current state of affairs in terms of where the field stands, relative to the claims made on its behalf.

The human resources department rarely leads in applying collaborative innovation. Yet, they face daunting challenges in helping their stakeholders become a learning organization: one that can thrive in a rapidly changing world. In this article Doug Collins argues that one of the best ways that human resources can give people space to practice the five disciplines that Peter Senge identifies as defining learning organizations is to embrace the practice of collaborative innovation.